Bitcoin Falls to $6,300 Region as Altcoins Continue to Decline

After failing to stabilize above $6,500, Bitcoin has now fallen into the $6,300 region, and it is becoming increasingly likely that it will test its long-established support level that exists at $6,200.

Altcoins also took a hit on Friday after yesterday’s weak day of trading.

Bitcoin Drifts Lower, $6,200 Likely to be Defended by Bulls

At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $6,395, trading down 1.3% over the past 24-hours.

BTC has been gradually declining since November 6th, when it rose to weekly highs of nearly $6,600 before beginning its slow decent back to its current levels.

Historically, it is important that bulls defend the $6,200 region, as that is the bottom of BTC’s persisting trading range between $6,200 and $6,700. If the bottom of this range is broken, it will open the doors for BTC to retest its year-to-date lows in the $5,800 region.

Although this is a possibility, it is fairly unlikely considering that bulls have defended $6,200 on approximately four occasion over the past three months, meaning that bulls will likely step up to defend this level in the future, unless there is a news-based drop.

Altcoins Continue to Decline

Bitcoin’s decline to the $6,300 levels has perpetuated the relatively small decline in altcoin prices, with many major alts trading down 3%+, with the worst performing major alt down nearly 20%.

At the time of writing, today’s market drop has been led by Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Cardano (ADA), and Basic Attention Token (BAT), which are trading down 3.8%, 3.7%, and 18.2% respectively.

Despite having a bad past couple of days, Bitcoin Cash is still one of the best performers of the week, currently trading at $570, up 26% from its weekly lows of approximately $450.

BCH’s bullish week is the result of its imminent hard fork event, which is scheduled to occur on November 15th. This event will reward holders of BCH with units of the forked cryptocurrency, which could ultimately prove to be highly profitable for investors.

Over the next week, investors could begin to increase their BCH positions in anticipation of the hard fork, then offloading their positions as soon as they receive the forked units.

Basic Attention Token’s poor daily performance is the direct result of the cryptocurrency’s ties to the cryptocurrency exchange EtherDelta, which is now facing legal troubles from the U.S. SEC, which has charged the platform’s founder with operating an unlicensed national securities exchange.

The charges, which were first announced in a SEC press release, detail how many of the ERC20 tokens offered on EtherDelta (like BAT) are considered to be securities, which puts their operation under the jurisdiction of the SEC.

Stephanie Avakian, the co-director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, spoke about the charges against EtherDelta’s founder, Zachary Coburn, saying that:

“EtherDelta had both the user interface and underlying functionality of an online national securities exchange and was required to register with the SEC or qualify for an exemption.”

In the coming weeks, it is likely that Bitcoin will lead the markets as usual, and its performance within its long-established trading range will likely impact which direction the entire market heads.